Edinburgh Hogmanay 2018

Thinking about spending NYE in Scotland? Here’s what we got up to at Edinburgh Hogmanay 2018.

As my readers will know, Edinburgh is definitely my favourite UK city. But, one thing I hadn’t done before was their NYE festival: Edinburgh Hogmanay.

Make sure you book well in advance! You’ll be surprised how quickly hotels book up. So if you are thinking of going, there’s nothing stopping you from looking now. We stayed in a Hilton hotel which was reasonably priced with breakfast. The only downfall it was a good 30 minute walk from the start of Princes Street – which is where all the action is.

‘The World’s Best Street Party’

Edinburgh Hogmanay consists of a variety of parties across the city. There’s plenty of venues to choose from and we booked the Street party and Silent Disco (details here). We paid around £40 each.

The Princes Street party is a huge high street that you enter from the train station. It’s filled with live music and street entertainment. They went all out with inflatables and dancers.

Our favourite part had to be the Silent Disco. It was only £5 each but you need a Street party ticket to get in. They played all sorts of music from R&B to pop and dance anthems. I’d definitely recommend going as you’re waiting for the countdown.

Of course bringing in the New Year together with the best fire work display I’ve ever seen was amazing too. The atmosphere was insane. Everyone’s so happy and dancing.

Is it reasonable?

Well for two of us we paid about £200+ for a hotel for two nights. Which is good, but we were out the way. The closer you are to the party, the dearer it costs.

Then our tickets were about £80 for the Street party and Silent disco. We booked these about September but if you buy now, you can get early bird rate.

You can also take drinks in, but you’re limited to 4 plastic glasses/ 4 cans each. While you’re in there the bars are very limited in drinks. Its either larger, cider or gin at £5 each. Not bad, and the queues weren’t too long either – you got served within about 10 minutes each time.

It was extremely busy though, around 60,000 people to be exact.

The queues for the toilets were really bad, so be prepared. We didn’t get very far inside the street either. The closer you attempted to go to the main stage, it was impossible. But, we were happy where we were in the middle just enjoying the music. There’s about four different stages so there really is plenty to go to.

Would I recommend it? Definitely. Its worth it.

Just make sure you’re wrapped up. Plus the Christmas markets are still there to enjoy too. You can read my Edinburgh Christmas Markets post here. I hope this has answered your questions, feel free to leave one below and I’ll get back to you.